Quantitative Methods of Empirical Research

Department

Bachelor's program Business & Management

Course unit code

B&M-B-3-SMB-QAN-SE

Number of ECTS credits allocated

Name of lecturer(s)

FH-Prof. Priv.-Doz. Dr. Stöckl Thomas

Mode of delivery

Recommended optional program components

none

Recommended or required reading

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC.
American Psychological Association. (2014). APA-Style. Retrieved from http://www.apastyle.org/
Anderson, D.R., Sweeney, D.J., & Williams, T.A. (2009). Statistics for business and economics (Rev. 10th ed.), Mason OH: Thomson South-Western.
Bell, E., Bryman, A., & Harley, B. (2019). Business Research Methods (5th ed.). Oxford: University Press.
Bethlehem, J., & Biffignandi, S. (2012). Handbook of Web Surveys. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. doi: 10.1002/9781118121757
Bernard, H.R., Wutich, A., & Ryan, G.W. (2017). Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches (2nd ed.). California: Sage.
Booth, A., Papaioannou, D., & Sutton, A. (2012). Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review. London, UK: Sage.
Boréus, K., & Bergström, G. (2017). Analyzing Text and Discourse: Eight Approaches for the Social Sciences. Londong, UK: Sage.
Denyer, D., & Tranfield, D. (2009). Producing a Systematic Review. In D. Buchanan & A. Bryman (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Research Methods (pp. 671-689). London, UK: Sage.
Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Jackson, P.R. (2015). Management & Business Research (5th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
Field, A. (2013). Discovering Statistics Using SPSS (4rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
Flick, U. (2015). Introducing Research Methodology: A Beginner's Guide to Doing a Research Project (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
Fowler, F.J. (2009). Survey Research Methods (4th ed.). Los Angeles, California: Sage.
Greasley, P. (2008). Quantitative Data Analysis Using SPSS: An Introduction for Health and Social Science. Berkshire, England: Open University Press.
King, N., & Horrocks, C. (2010). Interviews in Qualitative Research. Los Angeles, California: Sage.
Krieg, E.J. (2014). Statistics and Data Analysis for Social Science. Harlow: Pearson.
Kuckartz, U. (2014). Qualitative Text Analysis: A Guide to Methods, Practice & Using Software. London: Sage.
Machi, L.A., & McEvoy, B.T. (2016). The Literature Review: Six Steps to Success (3rd ed.). Singapore: Sage.
Marsden, P.V. (2010). Handbook of survey research (2nd ed.). Bingley: Emerald.
Mayring, P. (2014). Qualitative Content Analysis: Theoretical Foundation, Basic Procedures and Software Solution. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-395173
Morris, A. (2015). A Practical Introduction to In-Depth Interviewing. Sage.
Ridley, D. (2012). The Literature Review: A Step-by-Step Guide for Students (2nd ed.). London, UK: Sage.
Sandau, S., & Everitt, B.S. (2004). A Handbook of Statistical Analyses using SPSS. Chapman & Hall/CRC.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2016). Research methods for business students. Harlow, UK: Pearson.
Silverman, D. (2010). Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook, Los Angeles.
Snijkers, G., Haraldsen, G., Jones, J., & Willimack, D.K. (2013). Designing and Conducting Business Surveys. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. doi:10.1002/9781118447895
Thurman, P.W. (2008). MBA fundamentals: Statistics, New York: Kaplan.
Walliman, N. (2016). Social Research Methods: The Essentials (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Sage.

Additional information about examination modalities

The course introduces business students on an undergraduate level to quantitative empirical research methods and aims to teach the foundations for developing and implementing a quantitative research project. In particular, you will learn how to develop a research design as well as how to structure, design, and pretest a questionnaire. In teams, you will be asked to develop your own sets of questions (item batteries), carry out a survey to gather data, analyze it, and present your research in a (scientific) paper.

Level of course unit

Bachelor

Year of study

Fall 2025

Semester when the course unit is delivered

Language of instruction

English

Learning outcomes of the course unit

This module covers the context and the process of management research. It puts business and management research into perspective and offers students a first insight into the strategies and tactics of management research. The objective of this module is to develop students’ critical ability to independently undertake and solve a business problem using scientific methods. Therefore, their main tasks in this module consist of comprehensive independent work in the area of business research. Students will learn about the empirical research process and put the theory into practice by conducting a small-scale research project.

Course contents

Students will conduct a small research project based on a self-developed questionnaire. Thereby, they acquire sound theoretical knowledge and develope practical skills so that you are able to
• draft a concept for and develop an empirical survey based on a questionnaire.
• determine and operationalize variables.
• chose the appropriate scales and types of questions.
• structure a questionnaire.
• discuss quality-related aspects like scientific quality criteria and pretests.
• discuss important concepts of the survey like the statistical universe and sample selection.
• evaluate the performance of the survey.
• collect and encode data.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

The course comprises an interactive mix of lectures, discussions and individual and group work.

Work placement(s)

none

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